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November 24, 2025 14 mins

Cricket Australia is facing a loss estimated at more than $3 million from the two-day Ashes opener, due to missed ticket revenue.

A combination of Australian opener Travis Head's century and England's cavalier batting approach led to the match's completion on Saturday in Perth.

Former Black Caps test bowler Neil Wagner joined Piney to discuss.

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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sports Talk podcast with Dancy Wildergrave
from News Talk ZEDB.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
So the first Ashes cricket Test was over inside two
days in Perth. The hero Travis Head, who cracked the
sixth equal fastest century in Test history to deliver Australia
and eight wicket win over England.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Guards it.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
And gets the hundred short just sixty nine gorns. But
I was so sweet for Travis Head.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
He was taken to the top.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
And he has absolutely delivered Christine in one of the
great Ashes hundred's equal third fastest one hundred for Australia
the Test cricket near the standout performance, although Mitchell Stark's
ten wickets also in that conversation the entire match lasting
just one hundred and forty one overs. Let's bring in
one of our greatest fast bowlers and now cricket commentator

(01:03):
Neil Wagner Wax, thanks for joining us tonight. What do
you make of the fact, first of all that the
first Ashes Test was all over inside two days.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
Yeah, there's a lot being said about it, Plonny. Yeah.
I mean people will be unhappy not seeing obviously longer days.
I feel the chats about Australian losing millions, but for
me personally it kind of count with some high octane
fast bowling, which is incredibly hard to describe and explain

(01:33):
when you have I mean over probably five guys and
six guys at tes smash all bowling under over one
hundred and forty kilometers per hour at high speeds. The
bounds that they extracted out of a surface. There's nothing
wrong with that surface that we've come across that surface
before and that's just what you deal with. But when

(01:54):
you have eight bowlers running in that extract steep bounce
and high pace and make that extremely hard as the bowlers.
For a bowling point of view, it's quite exciting a
less good yeah player spectator point of you. Obviously, I
beg to differcause you want to watch more action and

(02:14):
for longer, but you got you can't. I don't know
where you could say take your hat off for Travis.
Heare the energy played and don't we've done. Yeah. I
think they'll sit back and reflect and say, cause they've
done differently, could they bowl different because they've done spread
everyone onto the field and bolted the white hole. Just
try and get them off strike and then go to

(02:36):
the more conventional field to guy like Marnas and and
Bill push it that way, but you can't take away
the energy played was a phenomenal energy that actually took
the game to be able to go, you know, a
lot quicker than whateveryone thought.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
It would go in terms of facing the bowling that
you talk about, and it was, as you say, high
quality bowling on a wicket that was probably conducive to
you know, to bowling quick like that. Should England have
just been less aggressive with the bat?

Speaker 3 (03:05):
Yeah, you can argue both ways. You can say you
can try and you write it out and fight it
out sometimes on a wicket like that. I mean when
they started batting in the back end when Travis he
got runs, there's no doubt that the surface to get
a fraction easier than what it was obviously you know
a couple of hours before that. We know from our
personal experience in perfect it was sort of like that.

(03:27):
You get through to you know, sort of day two, morning, afternoon. Off,
it starts getting easier, then it starts getting quicker. There's
a time where it's going to be a little bit
easier to bat, but you sort of stand there and
try and fight of it and you get one of
your name on it, which just Steve Bounce moving it
away and you nick it off. I think, knowing the
way England probably played as they knew there was obviously

(03:49):
something in the surface, was thinking to be able to
score runs quicker, to be able to get the conditions
to bowl on when it was still nipping and having
their patent bounce in the surface. There's a period where
on day three it becomes probably the easiest to bat,
and then day four, day five starts coming to play,
and then as a bowler when you bowl last on it,

(04:09):
that's where it gets really tough and their variable bounce.
The day three was arguably going to be the best
to bats. I think maybe England thought, hey, scoring runs
quick while something is an offer. Two hundred runs, two
hundred and fifty runs is going to be a very
tough score at that time because the game was so
far advanced and so quickly advanced that you could still
have something in it with the bowlers. Rather than getting

(04:30):
to port in a day three is probably the best
on to bat. It's more just where how fast that
game advanced, So yeah, you convict to different there's a
bit of both in it. But then it doesn't take
away from guys bowling high one hundred and forty close
to hundred fifty and touching under these guys with one
hundred and fifty pullust hour on one of the steepest,
fastest bouncies wickets in the world.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
What about the fact that England's second innings was so
short that their bowlers didn't have a heck of a
lot of time to recover from, you know, from bowling
against Australia in the first innings. As a fast bowler,
how important is it for your teamed to bat for
a while to allow you to get some rest and
recovery in.

Speaker 3 (05:11):
Yeah, that's been especially when you have four week boards
boiling you know, over one hundred and forty plus. Like
I said, steaming in binder cast proybe the only boy
who has been doing it for a number of years.
For a while, they've got the miles on his legs.
For Joffra mark Wood the other guys, they wouldn't have
had this impact on the body, I guess for quite
some time. And then on a test level, to not

(05:34):
have the rest it becomes crucial. Yeah, definitely, especially imperfect
way they were pretty lucky. I think from all accounts
that I heard, wasn't as hot as well. It normally
gets some purpose. The temperatures were as high as what
you sort of expect, so that doesn't take as much everybody.
But yeah, definitely running and boyling that pace for a day,
you'd want to get some rest and to be able

(05:55):
to back it up and go again. So yeah, it
wasn't sure enough. And I think England will know that.
You know, they lost five works quite quickly for not
many runs that they would have had a big impact
if they if they could have got more runs together,
anything from turn and fifteh roundred was a score they
going to back themselves to defend. I think how fast

(06:15):
the game advanced with two hundred odd runs, they still
would have backed themselves. But like I said, Travis Head
comes out, opens the batting and plays the absence sublime knock,
which he's done in the wall stage a number of
times now through all different formats. You've got to tip
your hat and say well well played. And I think
they were a little bit shocked. I think England you

(06:37):
sort of look at the way how they went about it.
I don't think they expected it and in things because
it's such a short game, so fast paced, unfought so quickly.
Before you look up, you go, ah, damn, we should
have played the tied dous tried that and hindsight always
but yeah from afar, when you sit on the couch,
it always looks a easier game. We sat there and
you go, gosh, just by a white hole, push everyone

(06:59):
on the boundary, just get them off strike. But when
someone's clearing the rope like you is, you sort of
and you sort of keep thinking. With the surface aways
we're playing, you're half a chance away. You know. Some
we go to hand. Before you know it, the guy
scores one hundred of the sixty odd deliveries. The game
has been taken completely away from you by a piece
of brilliance.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
Indeed, just on England's batting, have some all format players
lost the ability or the desire even to bat for
long periods?

Speaker 3 (07:30):
Well, that's a good question. I think in test much
you've got in one day cricket. We saw that won
this series when they were over here. You've got so
much more time in your hands. It's almost like they
just got the one grouprint and messed it of playing
and they stick. In turn, it's been able to adapt
I guess and conditions all over the world. But having
played county cricket the last couple of years and the

(07:50):
test masses of playing England, the surfaces over there have
been extremely slow and extremely flat. There's been a lot
of high run scored in county cricket that tried to
bring cucobra balls into playing counter creck to try and
promote the bowl fast. I don't necessarily sort of agree
with that because the schools, I think back on the memory.

(08:14):
So he scored eight hundred in the first innings scores
like that in for that cricket, everyone scoring one hundred
at run a ball. It sort of, I guess, brings
that technique. Weere guys are starting to play one a
cricket and for a game or as white ball players,
they sort of tee off and be quite aggressive. And
a lot of the games county cricket, specially start has

(08:36):
played on squeeze on the side where it makes for
a small boundary, and because of teaching a cricket the
day bats is the entice to take the shorter boundary
on and obviously allows different stroke plays. So I think
that starts creeping into the game, and it creeps into
the game. And to Teest Cricket, I mean, they've got
a coach who is altra aggressive in the way he played,

(08:56):
but he was very smart the way he did it.
He selected his moments, he knew when and where and
how to do it, and when he had to dig
it out, he did it. I think it's just comes
down to here. You want to play aggressive brand, you
want to be attacking and throw you a few punches,
But it's the smart of knowing when and earning that
right to be able to do it at the moment. Yeah,

(09:17):
you can look at the the Swissles the way they
get out. They're sort of trying to back their game,
but as a ball is presenting opportunities and giving a chance.
But and I said, you also look at it and go,
we've seen what they've done in our conditions here, Harry
Brook and those guys, the way they've played, you know,
someone who's them come off and score one hundred quite quickly,
as like Travis Heed did. It takes the game completely

(09:38):
away from you. So yes, there's room for both of them,
but you've got to be smart and be able to
adapt quite quickly, and I think, yeah, they missed the
trick beause I think they were heading that Tees s match.
They look like they had Australia and huge pressure and
being able to put them on the pump and our
conditions and one little short session change it all where

(10:00):
they I guess they lost the game in that short session.
And buy a piece of brilliant from treist Seed.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
Thanks so much for your insight, Wags. Loving your work
in TV commentary, mate, I appreciate you. You're joining us tonight.

Speaker 3 (10:11):
Thank you, mate, appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (10:12):
No, thank you, Wags. Neil Wagner that with his thoughts
on this. Imagine if you had tickets today three. I
said this yesterday on Weekend Sport. If you had tickets
to day three of the first Ashes Test, and thousands
and thousands of people will have I think they were
expecting a sellout, which is sixty thousand people. So sixty

(10:32):
thousand people would have had tickets yesterday. Families who could
only afford to attend one day would have chosen yesterday
Sunday as the day they got along. Corporates a lot
of them would have selected it as the day they
bring their clients to the test and wine and dine
them in those corporate areas. I mean, what about all

(10:53):
the food that's been ordered in advance, ready for the
thousands and thousands of hungry and thirsty patrons yesterday. What
happens to all that food and drink. Cricket fans of
all types would have planned to day at the cricket yesterday,
but there's no cricket for them because in the space
of one hundred and forty one overs, the game's done.
I've seen various estimates about how much Cricket Australia have

(11:17):
lost in ticket revenue. It's in the millions because they've
had to refund everybody for Day three and beyond, and
any seats that were left for Day three, four and
five obviously are not now going to be sold. And
there's also Cricket Australia's partners. They're sponsors who have ground
signage and the like, and those sponsors expect exposure on

(11:40):
television for up to five days, not three days, not
two days. And then you get the broadcasters. The broadcasters
pay big money for the right to the cricket and
they also expect to have five days of content for
their subscribers and also recoup some of the investments for advertising,

(12:01):
with the quite sensible expectation they'll have five days of
cricket to slot those ads into. But for the everyday
cricket fan me and you, it's just it's the denying
of live sport a day at the cricket I mean
these days, we don't expect every Test to go five days.
I think we know that some Tests are over quicker
than that, but we expect them certainly to get to

(12:24):
day three, don't we. And this wasn't a two day
Test because of any demons in the wicket. It wasn't
a mine field, and it wasn't ut a mismatch where
one team just got bowled out cheapley twice. These are
two of supposedly the best Test teams in the world,
starting their battle for the oldest prize in the game.
These two have been playing Test cricket against each other

(12:44):
one hundred and forty eight years, and all of a sudden,
the current crop have either forgotten how to play this
form of the game or they just can't be bothered
with it. What happened to the basics of Test cricket
occupying the crease playing yourself in, you know, get into
grips with the pitch, the conditions, the opposition bowlers, and
then putting a price on your wicket, building partnerships and

(13:06):
grinding the other team down, keeping them out in the
hot sun for as long as you possibly can, but
of application, as Neil Wagner said, earning the right to
then cash in. Look, I'm not saying you block every ball,
absolutely not. You can still be positive and aggressive, but
you have got so much time. England were well ahead

(13:27):
in that Test match. They were effectively one hundred ahead
for the loss of one wicket in their second innings.
They had all the time in the world to build
a lead, but in the space of eighteen overs they
lost their remaining nine wickets for less than one hundred.
They just went patient enough. Is this what Test cricket now?

(13:49):
Is just a slightly longer game of white ball cricket?
If it is, I guess that's okay. But we have
to have a serious chat about scheduling five day Test matches,
don't we.

Speaker 1 (14:01):
For more from Sports Talk, listen lived to News Talks
it'd be from seven pm weeks or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.
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